Lewis Hamilton Might Not Sign New Mercedes Contract Until After 2020 Season

The six-time World Champion’s contract with Mercedes will expire at the end of the year.

Lewis Hamilton might not extend his contract with the Mercedes F1 team until after the 2020 season, despite reports previously suggesting he had signed a £120 million contract “in principle”.

German broadcaster RTL has reported that Hamilton and the team decided to postpone contract negotiations until after the end of the season, and team principal Toto Wolff later said this was a possibility.

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“That can happen. We have already done that in the past,” Wolff said in an interview with Sky Deutschland.

Continuing, he said: “I love working with Lewis and I think it’s mutual. A contract like that requires a lot of detailed work so we want to take our time to look at that.”

Lewis Hamilton reportedly decided to delay the talks as he wants to wait to see how speculation about Wolff’s future at the team, in addition to a rumoured buyout of Mercedes’ F1 operation by Ineos, plays out.

The six-time World Champion has insisted that he isn’t in talks with other Formula One constructors.

“It is clear that I want to continue with the team, but we can sit down to do that later,” Hamilton added.

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